An enterprise that desires its employees to be productive has to enable effective communications by providing some type of telecommunications infrastructure. For example, the enterprise can use call-handling equipment such as private branch exchanges to enable employees to communicate conveniently with one another, as well as with people external to the enterprise. A private branch exchange, in particular, is capable of routing incoming calls from a telecommunications network, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network, via one or more transmission lines to any of the on-premises telephones that exist within the enterprise. Similarly, the private branch exchange is also capable of handling outgoing calls from any of the on-premises telephones to the telecommunications network.
Additionally, the private branch exchange is capable of providing telecommunications features that enable the forwarding of calls, the transferring of calls, conferencing, and so forth. Typically, each user of an on-premises telephone can create a customized profile that is stored at the private branch exchange and indicates to the exchange how to present information to and respond to signals from a telephone. In short, a private branch exchange—or other types of call-handling equipment, for that matter—provides a powerful tool with which employees are able to communicate with one another and accomplish work in the process.
Meanwhile, the same enterprise that desires productive employees has to provide comfortable working conditions by regulating environmental conditions at acceptable levels, conditions such as temperature and lighting. Of course, from a facilities cost perspective, it can be expensive to maintain such a workplace. Particular costs include those related to providing environmental control, but also other costs such as ensuring employee safety and enforcing building security. Some costs are incurred during normal working hours and some are incurred after hours.
Often an enterprise has to consider tradeoffs between saving facilities costs and adequately providing for its employees. For example, an enterprise might want to manage its energy costs during the winter by lowering the indoor air temperature by as much as possible and as often as possible. Of course, lowering the temperature too much causes employees to experience discomfort.
Therefore, an effective technique is needed to manage facilities costs, without some of the disadvantages in the prior art.